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Making time for self-care is important, but that doesn’t mean it has to take a lot of time. As a matter of fact, it’s really easy to make self care a lifestyle. And when I say self-care, I mean everything from your mental attitude and how you feel about yourself to how you treat your body. But for the sake of this article, I’m going to focus on a really simple yet overlooked way to practice self-care - eating good food.
Say what?? This article is about self-care and food?
Yeap, sure is! Because personally, one of my biggest challenges has been balancing time with healthy eating habits. Not only that, but I learned that what we eat and how we treat our body impacts our mind and our mood; our biological is completely intertwined with our psychological well-being. I’m no scientist, but I for sure feel the difference between eating a heavy-greasy burger or a scrum-diddli-ocious salad. The problem was, I used to eat for convenience way too often. But now that I know how to make healthy eating easy, I’ve created some simple habits that make it almost effortless.
So let’s jump right into the habits that made it easy for me. By the way, I clung to these when I was in and out of an emotional fog and struggling on auto-pilot. So trust me, if I could do it then, you can do it now!
Let's talk about...
Keeping it simple (simpler than you think!)
Planning ahead (no, not meal prepping)
Your “Don’t-Have-To-Think” list
Keep It Simple
I looooooove Pinterest. For so many reasons, but mainly because I’m a visual person who geeks out on organizational tools. So it feels like this platform was specially created for me, haha. Here’s why I love it when it comes to planning healthy meals → because you can literally type in exactly what you're looking for.
When I had zero to no energy, or brain power, I was typing in “Healthy Meals for Two”, or “30 Mins or Less”, and even “5 Ingredients or Less.” Come on, it doesn’t get any easier than that! Keep it simple and keep it organized with Pinterest.
Plan Ahead
Again, Pinterest for the win because it’s a crazy convenient way to plan ahead. You can scroll through recipes, even while watching your fave Netflix series, and save them ahead of time which makes it easy to locate when it comes time to cook. But another way to make healthy eating easy is to sit down on Saturday or Sunday and write out your meals (in this case I mean, dinner) for the week. You already have a library of ideas on Pinterest, just select 5 or 6 meals you want to make ahead of time. AND, don’t forget to schedule a Leftovers Day! Waste not, want not.
P.S. This is also really helpful if you send your kiddos to school with a packed lunch. For me, I like including meals that would also be easy for Caleb to take to school the next day in his thermos or lunch box.
Writing down a meal-plan is truly a stress-reliever when you have a busy week ahead. I’m not saying you have to spend all day Sunday meal-prepping, although if you do, more power to ya! But for me, “meal-planning” gives me the clarity I need for a week of healthy eating.
Your “Don’t-Have-To-Think” List
We all have those Go-To meals. Some in our family are spaghetti, hot dogs and beans, or brinner (a word used in our household to describe breakfast + dinner, lol). So one day I jotted down, in Google Docs, seven super-easy go-to meals. It’s not as pretty to look at as my Pinterest board, but it’s helpful!
On that same document, I created a weekly calendar with different themes on each day and listed a couple of meals under each theme. This way, when you need a quick idea for a good meal, you can pull from either of these lists (or of course Pinterest). Here’s an example of a themed calendar: Chicken Sunday, American Monday, Latin Tuesday, Leftover Wednesday, Seafood Thursday, Italian Friday, One-Pot Saturday.
Self-care is found in so many forms, including how you love your body with the food you eat. When it comes to self-care, we often make excuses about why we don’t have the time or maybe even minimize its significance. But, I want to leave you with this thought…
Treat your body like it belongs to someone you love and never forget how important it is to take care of yourself.
Because the reality is, when you don’t take good care of yourself, you won’t have the capacity to show up fully for others. Yes self-care is about you, but it doesn’t stop there; it impacts everything and everyone around you.
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